Will Rush Accept the Invitation to Judge the Miss America Pageant?

RUSH: I got a lot of questions from people listening to the show today. "Rush, why don't you go on television? Everybody else has a television show. Why don't you go on television?" Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to explain this again because I understand people wanting me to do this kind of thing on television and so forth. I really think that radio done right has more impact than television, or certainly as much. My audience here is larger than any audience in cable TV I'd ever go on or any network I'd go on and have a show. But more importantly it's just a professional thing.

I've done television and, frankly, I don't like it. It's structured, it is planned, it is orchestrated, it allows for no improv or spontaneity. It's really just a professional thing. I've never had one meeting to do this radio show. I have never sat down an hour before it, the day before it, and called somebody and said, "I'm going to do this at 1:08:30 tomorrow and I want you to have this ready by that exact time and this is what I'm going to say and I want the microphone in this position and a phone call --" and I've done this my whole life. Television is one of the most confining, restricting things. When I sit down to actually write, when I've tried to write things, writing is very hard for me because my vocabulary shrinks by half. My experience is speaking. My brain is at full 110% speed when I'm speaking. But when I sit down to start writing -- just as an example, I get caught up in the keyboard errors, gotta correct that, lose my train of thought. I can't type as fast as I can think. I can speak as fast as I can think, and so my experience and training is speaking extemporaneously after having been fully prepared and informed.

But to have to involve ten other people in what I'm going to do drives me nuts. "Okay, Mr. Director, I'm going to do this, then we're going to have this picture ready to go at that point in time," and I start thinking more about the process than the content. And monologues on television don't cut it. You gotta have pictures on TV. Radio you can provide the pictures via the host's talent and the audience's imagination. TV requires, the audience requires that you show them something. I've been inundated with this question today so I felt that I owed people an answer. Also, for those of you who were here yesterday, you know that I have been invited to participate in the Miss America Pageant in January as a judge, and I asked the audience what they thought of this because the original note from the Miss America Pageant people said it's a week-long commitment, from January 24th to the 30th, out in Las Vegas. I can't miss a full week of radio here out judging evening gowns and stuff. And so they got back to me yesterday: "Whoa, now, wait a minute, we heard Rush was talking about this today." I'll bet they did. "And we're more than happy to work the schedule around the broadcast schedule." Well, I haven't made up my mind yet. I got other things I have to ask them about and decide, but they don't even know what the schedule is.

I've got a lot of things to batten down, but I'll be honest with you, one of the things that worried me -- I started using a treadmill now -- I can't go to a gym in a hotel to use a treadmill. I can't do things like that in public. I'm too famous. Sit tight, Snerdley. If you'll let me finish this. I was worried I wouldn't be able to keep up the exercise regimen. If you don't keep it up, I mean it kind of all just falls by the wayside. I don't want to be a prima donna and say bring some equipment into the hotel suite, and I'm not going to go to the hotel gym, I'm too famous to do that sort of thing, but I saw this story, it's a study, actually, by German scientists, I'm not making this up here. It's another thing to consider if I do judge the Miss America contest, I won't have to exercise that week.

"A study by German scientists showed that 10 minutes a day of ogling women's breasts by men was as good at warding off heart disease, high blood pressure and stress as 30 minutes of aerobic exercise. The five-year study conducted by Dr. Karen Weatherby, followed 200 men. Those who partook in boob ogling for just 10 minutes a day enjoyed benefits equal to those of 30 minutes of grunting, groaning, sweating and doing push-ups at the gym. Weatherby found that a mere 10-minutes of staring at well-endowed females is roughly the equivalent of a 30-minute aerobics workout, because sexual excitement gets the heart pumping and improves circulation." Well, so I have to throw this into the hopper of things that I have to consider. I'm not making it up, folks. It's right there. Saw it doing show prep last night about 9:15. I got the date, got the time stamp here when I printed it out.